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Negotiations with Iran end on a positive note

Pioneer Press

Posted:
02/27/2013 12:01:00 AM CST

Updated:
02/27/2013 09:19:10 PM CST

Nation & World briefing

Prospects for a nuclear deal with Iran received an unexpected boost Wednesday, Feb. 27, when negotiators from Tehran and six world powers emerged from talks with a commodity rarely seen in recent Iranian diplomacy: optimism.

Two days of negotiations in Almaty, Kazakhstan, yielded little tangible progress other than a commitment to hold future talks in the coming weeks. But both sides described an improved atmosphere and an apparent softening of bargaining positions, leading a senior Iranian official to hail a possible "turning point" in the decade-long effort to resolve the nuclear crisis.

Western and Iranian officials acknowledged that formidable obstacles still exist, including over the specific steps Tehran must take to allay concerns about its pursuit of nuclear technology.

Still, a senior U.S. official at the Almaty talks said the Iranian team "appeared to listen carefully" to new proposals for ending the nuclear impasse. The official also said Tehran was unusually forthright in agreeing to a quick succession of follow-up talks, including technical consultations in March and a new round of formal negotiations in early April, again in Kazakhstan.

Senate confirms Lew for Treasury

WASHINGTON -- The Senate confirmed Jacob Lew to be Treasury secretary, affirming President Barack Obama's choice of a budget expert at a time when Congress and the White House are at odds over sharp government spending cuts.

The Senate voted 71-26 to support the nomination.

Lew, 57, had most recently served as Obama's chief of staff.

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He succeeds Timothy Geithner, who completed a tumultuous four-year term in which he helped lead the administration's response to the financial crisis and recession.

Violence Against Women Act gains

WASHINGTON -- House Republican leaders bowed to pressure from within their own party and cleared a path for House passage Thursday of the Senate's bipartisan reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

The House Rules Committee on Tuesday night approved a bifurcated process to consider the legislation, which would broaden the landmark 1994 law. The law established new legal protections for the victims of domestic violence and set up federally financed programs to assist local law enforcement officers and state courts.

The House will vote on a Republican version Thursday that contains provisions that weaken a Senate version that empowers Native American courts to prosecute non-Indians accused of violence on tribal land. The House version also does not explicitly extend programs to prevent domestic violence and treat its victims to members of same-sex relationships.

If that version fails to win passage, the House will take up the Senate-passed version -- at this point, the likely outcome. That would ensure a swift White House signing ceremony.

GOP gay marriage supporters grow

More than two dozen Republicans -- including a top adviser to Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, and a former congresswoman who made banning same-sex marriage her signature issue -- have added their names to a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to declare that gay couples have a constitutional right to wed.

The list of Republicans on the brief tallies more than 100, organizers say. It now includes Beth Myers, who ran Romney's 2008 campaign and was a senior adviser to him in 2012, and Marilyn Musgrave, a retired Colorado congresswoman who was once rated the most conservative member of the House by the American Conservative Union.

Musgrave, who lost her bid for a fourth term in 2008, was an unsuccessful sponsor of a constitutional amendment to bar same-sex couples from marrying.

The brief, organized by Ken Mehlman, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who is gay, will be filed Thursday as a friend-of-the-court, or amicus, brief to a lawsuit that seeks to overturn Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative that bars same-sex marriage, and all similar bans.

Disfigured woman gets face transplant

BOSTON -- The 2007 chemical attack left the Vermont nurse unrecognizable to anyone who knew her.

But now Carmen Blandin Tarleton's face has changed again after a facial transplant this month.

Doctors at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston said Wednesday that the 44-year-old's surgery included transplanting a female donor's facial skin to Tarleton's neck, nose and lips, along with facial muscles, arteries and nerves.

"I know how truly blessed I am, and will have such a nice reflection in the mirror to remind myself what selfless really is," Tarleton wrote on her blog Wednesday.

The Thetford, Vt., woman suffered burns on more than 80 percent of her body and was blinded after her estranged husband attacked her with a baseball bat and doused her with lye in 2007.

Slovenia trying new government leader

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia -- Slovenia's parliament ousted Prime Minister Janez Jansa and his conservative government Wednesday, while designating a financial expert from the opposition to try to form a new administration.

The moves come amid corruption allegations against Jansa and growing public anger over the struggling economy and austerity measures that have seen living standards fall and unemployment rise.

The 55-33 no-confidence vote named Alenka Bratusek as prime minister-designate. Bratusek, 42, would be the first female to lead Slovenia's government since its secession from Yugoslavia in 1991.

Latham won't seek Harkin Senate seat

Iowa GOP Rep. Tom Latham's decision Wednesday not to make a bid to fill the seat of Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, who is retiring, has disappointed many Republicans.

The Senate race in Iowa, for the state's first open seat since 1974, has gained considerable attention as Republicans aim to pick up six seats to win a majority next year. Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who has made a series of incendiary statements during his time in Washington, even while earning strong praise from his constituents, is considering a bid, and Republican officials believe he is inclined to run.

Rep. Bruce Braley is the only Democrat to enter the race. He already has locked up the support of several state Democratic leaders.

Morning sickness drug deemed safe

There's reassuring news for pregnant women miserable with morning sickness: A very large study in Denmark finds no evidence that using a popular anti-nausea drug will harm their babies.

One in 10 pregnant women has nausea and vomiting bad enough to need medicine but many forgo it out of fear of side effects. No drugs are approved for morning sickness in the United States, although doctors are free to prescribe whatever they believe is best.

Zofran, sold by GlaxoSmithKline and in generic form for treating nausea from cancer treatments and other causes, has been the top choice.

The new study of more than 600,000 pregnancies in Denmark found no evidence of major birth-related problems, so women should not be afraid to use Zofran if they need it, said Dr. Iffath Hoskins, a high-risk pregnancy specialist at NYU Langone Medical Center and a spokeswoman for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

While black holes are difficult to detect, the region around them gives off telltale X-rays. Using NASA's newly launched NuStar telescope and the European Space Agency's workhorse XMM-Newton, an international team observed high-energy X-rays released by a supermassive black hole in the middle of a nearby galaxy.

They calculated its spin at close to the speed of light -- 670 million mph.

This is the first "unambiguous measurement of the spin rate" of a supermassive black hole, University of Maryland astronomer Christopher Reynolds wrote in an accompanying editorial.